In-wall and in-ceiling mounted speaker assemblies are quite popular. However, known speaker assemblies mounted in this manner, such as that depicted in FIG. 15a, either provide little in the way of bass sounds or cause an unpleasant side effect by vibrating or rattling the walls and ceilings in which the system is mounted, as shown in FIG. 15b. This is because bass-producing loudspeakers, i.e., woofers 22′, produce low-frequency sound waves through the back-and-forth movement of a driver's diaphragm, indicated by arrow 52′. The movement of the driver's diaphragm necessarily results in movement of the surrounding environment of the woofer. That is, the vibrations of the diaphragm transfer to the woofer's frame and eventually transfer into the mounting panel to which the speaker system is mounted. Thus, for in-ceiling or in-wall mounted speakers, such as that shown in FIGS. 15a and 15b, for which the mounting panel is attached to or consists of the ceiling's or wall's surface 42, the vibrations generated by the diaphragm eventually transfer to the surrounding wall or ceiling 42, producing the unwanted rattling or vibrating thereof, as shown in FIG. 15b. The vibrations also generate unwanted and out-of-phase sound, which distorts and otherwise interferes with the main sound signal the loudspeaker itself produces. All this increases distortion levels in the bass frequencies of the loudspeaker system.
Another disadvantage to known speaker systems configured for providing significant bass sounds is the size of such systems. Woofers are generally much larger than higher frequency range loudspeaker drivers. Given the necessary large size of woofers, then, known speaker assemblies designed to provide a great deal of bass sound are generally large and therefore not conducive to in-wall or in-ceiling installations. As such, they take up space in rooms or on furniture that could otherwise be put to another use. Further, due largely because of the large size of woofers, speaker owners often place these bass-providing systems in corners of rooms or off to the side of a room, rather than near the middle of the room. Placing the systems at these locations inevitably leads to increased vibration or rattling of close-by walls, floors, and furniture.
The loudspeaker system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,561,717, attempts to avoid vibrations to the walls of a room for an in-wall installed bass speaker system by arranging the woofers in an enclosure so that the axis of each woofer intersects at a particular point, providing a port tube to allow the sound to exit out of the enclosure. This system, however, is limited in the range of sound wave frequencies producible. All of the woofers of the system are loudspeakers producing the same, low-range frequencies. This is necessary to provide the equal and opposite reaction on the enclosure from the symmetrically-arranged woofers. Thus, this known system provides only a one-way woofer system for bass sounds. It further does not have the aesthetic appeal of traditional in-wall or in-ceiling tweeter loudspeakers.